Kissed by Death
by Phoenix Severa Black
Summary: Death can touch you in more than one way.


**KISSED BY DEATH**

I met him for the first time in a tunnel below his parents' house. I knew that he would die at the age of 11, that a boulter would crash him only days after his parents' death. I couldn't bear the thought, though. There was something special about him. I just knew he'd be different. So in the end, only seconds before it happened, I decided to save him. I moved close to him, became visible as the second of death arrived and kissed him. I gave a part of my immortality to save the child from its fate. The boy stared at me with his mouth open, the boulder didn't fall and I disappeared into nothingness again. His fate and mine would forever be interwoven.

For more than fifteen years I didn't see him again and didn't actively follow him. Even if our fates were intertwined now, it didn't mean that we would be close in any way. He was simply a human that had been touched by Death. Then he became an agent for MI6, and a few times I was walking next to him on his missions, sometimes to take the ones that died through the circumstances that he created, sometimes because one wrong move would have ended him. It gave me a chance to study the man he had become and I could feel my piece of immortality in him. It was beautiful. He was handsome, too.

When he became a double-oh agent for Queen and Country, I practically became his shadow. His life was more often than not touch-and-go and his end could have come with every single one of his missions. Many times I was so close I could have touched him, could have become visible to him, but he always got away. Then his colleague shot him and he fell from a train which was on a bridge at that moment into the river deep down below him and once again I couldn't let him die. I just couldn't. For some reason it was impossible. Then and there I had an inkling of what way lay ahead of me. I didn't know it for sure, of course, but I felt that things were about to change. I was next to him before I knew it, ready to take his soul with me, ready to give him death, but instead I once more kissed him, once more gave him my immortality, and brought him back to the surface. His eyes opened for one small moment, then closed again.

From then on it pulled me more and more often towards him even if his end was not lurking around the corner. The bond was stronger, our connection deeper and I was sure he could feel it. His behaviour was even more self-destructive than before, but at the same time his emotion got deeper. I felt them. It got worse with every single day that passed. Then, in the middle of Scotland, I took the life of the only woman he cared for while sparing his. Still it was not enough. It would never be enough as long as he lived.

Together with him I went to Mexico and he was damn lucky to fall onto that wretched sofa because otherwise I would have been forced to either take him with me or kiss him once more. Rome was much more relaxed – at least for me. Even the Alps didn't really endanger his life although any other mortal would not have survived what he did. And then he followed that woman into the dessert. He felt something for her. Her closeness and calmness pushed me away from him, made our bond weaker and still I could not let go. When those needles once more threatened his life it was _her_ who saved him, _her_ with whom he fled and _her_ who he saved back in London. The bond had almost dissolved by the time the mess was over and I felt its loss more than I liked, more than I ever could have expected.

It was days after he ended Spectre, the day he went to get his car and drive off into the sunset, that I found out how wrong we had been. Him, his blonde woman, his boss, and even me. Despite me saving him from his immediate death, the needles had done quite some damage and there was no way to avoid or exchange it unless I gave another piece of myself. I could feel that with another piece gone, I would be so close to mortality that I could almost touch it. My invisibility would be the first to go and after that … And still, as his colleague called the ambulance and he lay there on the floor with an aneurism so very close to his mind, I accepted that my days as immortal Death were coming to an end. For one fraction of eternity I contemplated letting him go and saving myself, but that moment passed quickly. I knelt down next to him and took his hand in mine. Touch that I had avoided previously. It made things too real. His gazed at our joined hands before he slowly raised his eyes to meet mine. I knew he could see me. He had always been able to in the moment prior to his death. His lips formed words without making a sound. I shook my head and bent down. Slowly, carefully I touched his lips with mine and felt the spark that had been there from the beginning. Another piece of immortality lost, the pain sharper this time. A part of my immortality lost forever. I didn't mind, though. When I pulled back, he looked younger, more at ease than before. He raised his hand, touched my face. I let him. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity even to me, but took only as long as the blink of an eye, I got up from the floor and walked away. I didn't look back. I knew he was safe until the next time.

The next time – I wasn't certain if it wouldn't be our last time meeting. I had lost my invisibility. My ability to appear and disappear unseen was gone. If someone came upon me now … I was forced to be a face in the crowed. Going unnoticed was harder than I ever imagined it to be, especially when was looking different from the ordinary woman. Even without doing much, I looked special and people noticed me wherever I appeared. I knew now that the end of my immortality was near. The next kiss would make me one of them, would rob me of what I had been for so long. Maybe it was the fate of every Death to one day become mortal again and experience what we had given to others before. Was it punishment or salvation? Much to my surprise days and weeks passed by without being drawn to him. Months. Then a year and a second one. Maybe he had finally found a place to be happy at, a life without danger. Somehow I doubted it. It didn't fit. It wasn't like him. He wasn't someone to sit back and let other do his work. He wasn't someone who lived with a wife and kids in a house with a white fence in some suburb. It wasn't like him. My dawning mortality brought so many strange emotions with it. Emotions that had always been there but hidden under a layer of indifference now emerged and made me feel lost. I missed him. Felt a longing that I had never known. I wanted to go to him but at the same time felt unable to do so. I felt so torn, so restless, helpless.

The pull came so sudden that I thought it would rip out my heart. I was drawn to Scotland. The ruins of what had once been his house. At first I didn't see him. It was getting dark. It was cold. Rain almost turned to snow was falling. I moved closer to the ruins and then I saw him. I knelt there on the ground a gun in hand. It wasn't like him. He wouldn't do that, would he? He was not the kind of man who committed suicide. Still it had drawn me to him and that meant that if I didn't stop it, stop him … The last kiss. One more kiss. No. Not like this. Just … He couldn't mean it. He raised the gun. Maybe he would … Raised it to his temple. If he really pulled the trigger. I was kneeling down in front of him before I could realise what I was doing. I leaned close and my lips gently touched his. This time the spark of electricity was so strong that I felt as if someone had switched a light on. As if thousands of ants were crawling over my body. As if I was drenched with ice water. I drew in a deep shuddered breath, felt the beating of my heart, the blood pumping to my veins, the end of immortality, and the beginning of the end. Death would find me now. Death would come for me when the time was right. The kiss ended and I couldn't flee. I was no longer able to leave and we were in the middle of nowhere. Without him I would see Death sooner than expected.

"I know you."

I didn't know what to say. I had never spoken to any of my ... victims.

"Why couldn't I find you? Why did I only see you if I was close to dying?"

"Do you really need to ask? You know the answer already."

"You've never talked to me before."

"I couldn't."

"And now you can?"

"I'm no longer what I used to be."

He frowned.

"Why?"

"Isn't it obvious? I gave my immortality in exchange for your life. I gave all I had to save you."

Silence. All of sudden I felt incredibly cold and exhausted. I was only human after all. I shivered and he noticed. He put his gun away and rose to his feet.

"Let's go somewhere warm."


End file.
